


caught in that spiral

by Sinna



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, alternate ending to MAG101
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-29
Updated: 2018-08-29
Packaged: 2019-07-04 04:40:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15833934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sinna/pseuds/Sinna
Summary: The door is not locked.The Archivist enters the place that Is Not and Cannot Be.





	caught in that spiral

**Author's Note:**

> continuing my trend of naming Magnus fics with Bastille lyrics, the title of this work is from Forever Ever  
> inspired by a prompt, but doesn't even remotely resemble that prompt anymore so I won't put it here

Jon looked to the door where Nikola Orsinov had left only minutes before. Considered his options. Skinned alive by the circus, or certain madness in this monster’s twisting corridors?

It was an easier choice than he would have cared to admit.

“Okay,” he sighed.

The creature who was Michael smiled too wide, with teeth that seemed to go on forever.

“Good. Right this way.” A door appeared in front of him, connected to seemingly nothing at all. “Open it. Open it and this will all be over.”

Jon took a deep breath, opened the door, and stepped into a place that could not be. A place that had never been, and never would be.

That did not, of course, mean that the corridors of the monster that was not Michael were any less real. He closed the door behind him, unable to resist a small sigh of relief at having escaped the horrors of the circus, before acknowledging that the current situation wasn’t a particular improvement.

He looked around, not entirely sure what he was looking for. The corridor was similar to what he’d imagined when Michael gave its statement – perhaps too similar. There was no reason the physical embodiment of madness should manifest as a neat corridor paneled in dark mahogany and interspersed with gold-framed mirrors. There was a certain… Archival… quality to the light that only strengthened his suspicions.

Whatever this was, it was shaped by his preconceived notions. Either that, or his mind was unable to process what he was actually seeing and had decided to substitute its own delusions. Neither was a particularly comforting thought.

Despite Michael’s threats, there seemed to be no immediate danger. The Spiral, it would seem, had no interest in killing him quickly.

After several minutes of deliberation, Jon decided that if he stayed where he was, the boredom would be the first thing to kill him. Still, he wasn’t going to be stupid about this. He searched his pockets for a pen of some sort. Finding nothing but his lighter, he instead reopened a newly-scabbed cut on his forearm and marked the nearest mirror with a vivid red stripe. With that, he set off to the left, picking the direction mostly at random.

If the corridor curved, it was so gentle as to be undetectable. It seemed to simply continue on a straight line. There seemed to be no turns, or branches. Just a hallway that went on forever, mirror after identical mirror.

A deep red mark on an approaching mirror made Jon groan aloud. The sound echoed ominously, as if he were in a much larger space. Perhaps he was.

Unless there was something mimicking his marking system – which was, admittedly, a possibility – he’d somehow ended up right back where he’d started. And all without a single turn. With a sigh, he made a second mark and went back the way he came.

Sure enough, the next time the mirror came into view, several minutes later, there were two red marks, one noticeably drier than the other.

There was always the possibility that he’d already gone mad, and none of this was real. That, however, wasn’t a particularly useful view to take at the moment. If that was true, then nothing he did would matter. If it wasn’t, then he still had a chance, and giving up would be letting It win.

Devoid of any brighter ideas, he decided to determine the size of his prison. Turning back to the left, he began to walk again, counting the mirrors as he went.

Two minutes into this pointless exercise, he noticed something. The mirrors weren’t reflecting the corridor he was in. Or at least, not exactly. If he caught them at the right angle, he could see into the distance. In the mirrors, he could see corridors branching away from the main hallway. When he looked away from the mirror, there was only a blank wall. He approached one of these phantom hallways, as best as he could determine. The paneled wood of the wall was solid under his fingers. He looked back towards the mirror, to check that he was in the right place, and the wall abruptly vanished beneath his hands. Keeping his eyes carefully glued to the mirror, Jon backed away down the branch.

Finally through, he turned his attention to the hallway around him. It didn’t seem much different than the one he’d come from, which was still visible through the walkway. A little darker, perhaps, but not so dark as to make sight difficult.

His hands reacted before his conscious mind to the sight of movement on his left, leaving him with a shattered mirror and a similarly shattered hand.

He glimpsed strands of blond hair as the mirror cascaded to the ground.

Picking up a largely intact shard, he carefully wrapped one end in a strip torn from his shirt, making himself a simple dagger. Not that he thought it would be particularly useful, even if he did find something here that he wanted to stab, but it made him feel a little bit safer. A second strip of his now thoroughly destroyed shirt he wrapped around his bleeding knuckles. Hardly a replacement for proper medical care, but he’d work with what he had.

He continued down the corridor, carefully watching the mirrors for any signs of either Michael, or unseen hallways. But it seemed that the Spiral had grown bored with its trick after Jon had solved the puzzle. Moving on, the branches, turns, and corridors were all equally visible both in front of him, and in the mirror world.

Jon hesitated for several moments at a side corridor before remaining on the main path. Something seemed wrong about that turn, although he couldn’t say why.

In fact, the more he traversed the corridors, the more he could sense which ones were dangerous, and which were safe. He told himself it must be some sort of power related to his position as the Archivist. He didn’t want to think about the alternative.

Michael shimmered into existence inside a mirror to his right. He reacted on instinct, again slamming his hand into the mirror, but instead of encountering cool glass encountered only empty air.

He fell through the mirror.

He clambered to his feet, dropping his improvised knife, and found himself once again face to face with Michael, smiling in the very mirror he’d just fallen through. Jon flinched. Michael did too, but he didn’t stop smiling.

A horrible suspicion whispered at the back of his mind. Jon raised his right hand and watched as the figure mirrored him exactly.

He turned away from the figure and ran.

It was only a few minutes before his lungs protested stringently enough that he finally slowed to a walk. He leaned back against the walls. The sturdy cedar was starting to… melt. That was the only word he could find for it. It was nearly imperceptible, but Jon didn’t doubt it. It was as real as anything else he was seeing in here. The mirrors shifted their minute spiraling designs on their shiny brass frames every time he looked away.

Jon tried to just breathe.

“Do you want to survive?”

He jumped at the voice beside him. It took him a moment to find the woman in the mirror.

“Helen? Helen Richardson?”

“It’s not quite the same as survival,” she continued, as if she hadn’t heard him. “But I suppose it might be better than slowly dying of dehydration.”

“Why would you help me?” he asked.

She shrugged. He noticed that her eyes seemed to skitter off him. He wondered what she was seeing, and if it was any better than the things he saw in here.

“You were nice,” she said, as if that explained anything.

“What help are you offering?”

She tilted her head just so.

“I can show you the door. My door. It’s the only way you’ll see the outside world again, Archivist.”

“Okay.”

He expected her to lead him somewhere, but instead she simply reached through the mirror and grasped his hand, pulling him through to her side. He tried not to shudder at the… wrongness… of her touch.

On her side of the mirror, the illusion of oak panels and bronze mirror frames had collapsed more fully into merely the suggestion of such things. Beside Helen was a small yellow door with a black handle.

The world around them began to shiver, to shake with the approach of some… thing.

“Might want to hurry, Archivist,” Helen suggested.

“What happens if I open that door?” Jon asked.

“Would you believe anything I told you?”

As Jon gripped the doorknob, he caught a glimpse of Helen in the nearest mirror. Michael’s grinning face stared back at him with far too many teeth.

\--

A door opened in the Head Archivist’s office of the Magnus Institute. A door had previously never existed in the empty space between the bookshelf and the floor lamp, but such a door nonetheless opened, allowing what looked like a man to step into the office. As he closed the door behind him, it returned to its natural state of nonexistence. No door existed in that wall, nor ever had, nor ever would.

The thing that was once Jonathan Sims blinked, once, and broke out into a smile far too wide for its thin face.


End file.
